North Salem, N.Y.—Sept. 14
You could see Richie Moloney weighing the options. When he came into the jump-off of the $215,000 American Gold Cup CSI-W, there wasn’t a clean round on the scoreboard. But he wasn’t the last to go, so he couldn’t dally.
Moloney pressed Carrabis Z over the first four jumps, making sure he wasn’t wasting the clock But when all the rails were in the cups after that, he eased up a bit and made sure he kept it that way.
“My horse jumped amazing. He’s been jumping great lately and it’s nice for him to get the win here today,” Moloney said. Towards the end of the jump-off round I got a little bit careful and made sure I jumped a clear round.”
In the end, clean was good enough, as no other rider was able to leave all the rails up. Laura Kraut was more than 2 seconds faster than Moloney, but Deauville S had punched the rail out at 3A early in the jump-off.
“I went in to try and give them something to beat but I just chickened out on the turn,” Kraut said. “I saw the one to leave out and I thought that it wouldn’t be a very good angle for him so I just swung out one more stride and I just got there too dead. It was totally my fault. So then once I had that, I was doing the math in my head and I thought, ‘Well I better speed this up!’ and worst case scenario then I would be fourth so it just worked. I got lucky today and ended up second.”
Moloney is an Irish rider based in the United States and he’s definitely a man of few words. But even through the implacability, you could see he was thrilled with Carrabis Z’s performance. He’s been riding the 12-year-old stallion for three years, but it’s taken a while to get him to the top level.
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“When I tried him, it was late in his 8-year-old year and he was actually very green for an 8-year-old,” Moloney said. “He’s got a lot of blood, so he’s a little bit difficult to ride but he’s very careful. Even though he’s 12 this year I feel he’s just starting to really improve now since the start of the summer so hopefully there’s more good things to come.”
Now that he’s won one of the seven East Coast Longines North American League World Cup qualifiers, is Moloney aiming for the 2016 Longines FEI World Cup Final? He’s not sure.
“I went to Word Cup Finals this year in Vegas and I saw how hard it was and I’m not sure I have a horse or two horses that it would suit,” he said. “We’ll see; you never know by the time April comes.”
Third place went to Daniel Bluman of Colombia on Conconcreto La Sancha LS. “When I walked it I found it extremely technical and careful. I think it took good horses and good riders to jump a clear round today,” Bluman said. In fact, Alan Wade’s course whittled the start list from 40 in the first round to six for the jump-off.
“I was very satisfied the way Sancha jumped; we’ve been together already for five or six years jumping these classes and it never gets old to jump a clear round. The jump-off was really good—I had to go first and I wanted to make a nice quick round. I knew I had great riders coming after me and unfortunately I had a very cheap and painful rail at the back rail of the combination but after that I just sort of wanted to keep a nice canter because when you have a small group of riders in the jump-off anything can happen.”
A hometown hero, Peter Lutz, came in fourth in the class in the first biggest class he’d attempted with Robin de Ponthual. “I’ve been riding him for about a year and we just stepped up in to the grand prix this spring,” Lutz said. “This summer we’ve had some really nice results. This is our first jump-off at this level so I was really thrilled with how he went and our placing. I’ve just been getting to know him and he’s been super.”
See full results of the $215,000 American Gold Cup. For more about Moloney and the American Gold Cup, make sure to read the Sept. 28 print issue of The Chronicle of the Horse.
